Hello! Project 2010 Winter Kacho Fugetsu -Shuffle Date-

Since the Elder Club graduation in 2009, Hello! Project has had to come up with a gimmick to make its annual H!P summer and winter concert tours more memorable. For this one they recreated a bunch of old units with current members, drawing from Morning Musume, Berryz Kobo, C-ute and the Hello! Pro Eggs to give us new versions of Minimoni, Petitmoni, Tanpopo, Zyx, Def.Diva, and V-u-den, among others. Trouble is, all it does is remind us how great the old units were. Who among the current bunch can fill the shoes of Nacchi, Maki, Aya, Mari, Rika, Kaori, Yossi, Kei, Aibon and Nono? Not many, but they make a game try. Aa! at least has two of its original members, Miyabi and Airi, both in fine voice, so it comes off best among the revival units. Two already existing units, Buono and High-King, perform their own material rather than covers and they come off best of all. They've also got five of the top performers in the current H!P lineup--Ai T., Saki S., Maimi, Airi and Momoko. The recreated Petitmoni, consisting of Erina Mano, Saki Nakajima, and Mai Hagiwara, pulls off the most delightful number in the whole show, "Pira! Otome no Negai," a fast-paced novelty song pumped up with catchy nonsense lyrics. The recreated Zyx, led by Risa, does a good job on Zyx's two singles from 2003. Ai T., Eri and Saki S. do a fine job on "Love Like Crazy," originally performed by Nacchi, Maki and Aya. However, the attempt by Reina, Sayumi, Maasa and Maimi to recreate Def.Diva (Nacchi, Maki, Aya, Rika) falls flat, despite Maimi's best efforts. Sayumi tries to do Rika as she leads a recreated V-u-den in two songs. She simply doesn't have the voice to pull it off, but she does get the sexy part right. She and JunJun and Risako wear these eye-catching red patent vinyl minidresses with black stockings and garter belts. Sayumi's the most provocative and clearly relishes it, making up considerably for her awkward singing. The Hello! Pro Eggs offer great back-up dancing, but are not showcased very well by the camerawork. The production quality is often poor. The stage is cramped and the set design too busy. The lighting often washes out the image. There are bad camera angles and frequent cutaways, usually just when a performer is doing something interesting. A lot of good dancing goes unseen as a result. Despite the highlights cited above, I've seen much better H!P winter concerts.

This is a rarity for HP as this DVD is ,as the title would suggest , the sub units ( Guardians 4 et al). It's great to see the S/Mileage girls on an equal footing with the others and the sets , music and general presentation are up to the usual HP standards. Well worth the money.